One of the biblical injunctions sometimes cited by Michael Gerson, who died Thursday at the age of 58 after a long battle with cancer, comes from the New Testament book of Colossians: “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
That advice works not only for Christian believers such as he was, but also in the sometimes brutal political world in which he made his mark. He was a presidential speechwriter whose own words were, indeed, singularly seasoned and notably full of grace. For the past 15 years, he enriched the pages of this newspaper as a columnist for the Opinions section.
Michael Gerson from 2013: Saying goodbye to my child, the youngster
But civility, as Mike also noted, does not preclude tough-mindedness. Nor should it be mistaken for a lack of principles or perspective. His own were rooted in the faith that fueled and defined his involvement with politics, and he was scorching in his assessment of his fellow evangelicals when theirs took what he saw as a more cynical turn. In a September essay, he wrote these supposedly conservative Christians “have broadly chosen the company of Trump supporters who deny any role for character in politics and define any useful villainy as virtue. In the place of integrity, the Trump movement has elevated a warped kind of authenticity — the authenticity of unfiltered abuse, imperious ignorance, untamed egotism and reflexive bigotry.”
“This,” Mike wrote, “is inconsistent with Christianity by any orthodox measure.”
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Mike and I were colleagues and friends whose paths crossed pretty regularly. One place we spent time together was at semiannual conferences in Florida known as the Faith Angle Forum, where people gather to discuss religion and politics. |
It was during one of those meetings in 2014 that, for the first and only time, I saw Mike get angry — really angry.
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I was seated next to him for a session on religious conflict and the future of the Middle East, in which one of the speakers was Elliott Abrams, a fellow George W. Bush White House veteran who had served as deputy national security adviser for Middle East policy.
“It used to annoy me enormously when President Bush, for whom I was working, would say Islam is a religion of peace,” Abrams said, “because the real response to that is ‘Where is your theology degree from?’ ”
As Abrams continued along those lines — at one point claiming the “average American” was justified in thinking “this is crap … because all these people who are doing beheadings are Muslims” — I could feel Mike grow tense in the chair next to me. He waited his turn to be called upon, and then he confronted his former colleague.
“We praise Islam, and every president from now on will praise Islam on religious holidays because there are millions of peaceful citizens who hold this view,” Mike said. “It’s also a theologically sophisticated view, as opposed to what you’re arguing … every tradition, religious tradition, has forces of tribalism and violence in its history, background, of theology, and every religious tradition has resources of respect for the other.”
He added: “That is a great American tradition that we’ve done with every religious tradition that comes to the United States, included them as part of a national enterprise and praised them for their strongly held religious views and emphasized those portions that are most compatible with those ideals.”
As deep as his own Christian religious beliefs were, Mike was tolerant, accepting, even admiring of those who prayed differently. And while he was by and large a social conservative, Mike knew that not every question involving faith and truth could be resolved along the bright battle lines of the culture wars, or literally be set in scripture.
He celebrated gay pride month and argued that our scientific understanding of the genetic basis of sexual orientation has come a long way since the Apostle Paul’s time. But he also believed that religious institutions, including schools and charities, should have leeway to shape their own standards.
And Mike was open about the times in his life when he had his own doubts about what God had in mind for him. In 2019, he spoke frankly and publicly about being hospitalized for depression, delivering a powerful sermon at the National Cathedral and then a column for The Post.
A few days earlier, Mike and I had lunch. The speechwriter who had written so many words for others told me he was nervous about baring himself so publicly, and he asked if I would read a draft. He also confided that he had been living in a shadow where, at times, he wondered whether those who meant the most to him would be better off — unburdened — if he weren’t around.
In his sermon, he put it this way: “I suspect that there are people here today — and I include myself — who are stalked by sadness, or stalked by cancer, or stalked by anger. We are afraid of the mortality that is knit into our bones. We experience unearned suffering, or give unreturned love, or cry useless tears. And many of us eventually grow weary of ourselves — tired of our own sour company.”
Mike combined his lived faith with his gift for expression to offer a hand to others — showing that they are not alone in the dark. “Even when strength fails, there is perseverance,” he said in his sermon. “And even when perseverance fails, there is hope. And even when hope fails, there is love. And love never fails.”
Now, his unearned suffering has ended, and those he touched, including many who never met him in person, will so deeply miss Michael Gerson’s company. His grace was a blessing, and we need it more than ever.
Go the above link for pictures and a selective compendium of Mike’s writings.
Mike was a voice for what modern American conservatism could and should have been: “a conservatism of the common good that argues that we need to orient our policies towards people that might not even vote for us.”
Mike will be missed.
